Make Orange Green News

The university recognized campus leaders in sustainability during the Environmental Leadership Awards ceremony on Campus Earth Day on April 19. The awards are presented each year to a student and faculty and staff members whose environmental efforts on campus help ‘make orange green.’ This year, professor Kenneth McFarland, Claudine Nagal, and student Nick Alerderson took home the awards.

This week marks the beginning of Earth Month at UT. Celebrating its seventh year, Earth Month encourages environmental awareness, conservation, and sustainable practices to the campus community. The month-long event is celebrated across the globe and UT is excited to participate, offering events and activities that are both fun and interactive.

UT’s recycling efforts got a big boost from the Alcoa Foundation. The foundation donated 1,584 recycling bins, valued at $5,000, which the university is deploying inside sorority houses, and inside and outside fraternity houses.

Before you head out to spring break and eliminate your thoughts of work, purge your workspace of its paper. March 22 through 28 is UT’s Paper Purge Party, where faculty and staff are invited to purge unwanted paper. Simply put paper in a box, bin, pile, or bag, mark it for “recycling” and set it outside your office door. Volunteers with the Facilities Services department will make the rounds and do the heavy lifting. The Paper Purge Party is part of the RecycleMania Tournament, a competition between colleges and universities to see who can recycle the most.

Do you know of a student or faculty or staff member who goes the extra mile to help promote environmental leadership and sustainability on campus? If so, nominate that individual for a 2013 Environmental Leadership Award. All nominations are due no later than 5:00 p.m. Wednesday, March 20. Nominations may be submitted online or via email to the Office of Sustainability.

UT’s Recyclympics was featured by the Knoxville News Sentinel. In the spirit of friendly competition and going green, faculty, staff and students competed in six Olympic-style recycling-themed events to win prizes. Crowd-pleasing favorites include the phonebook shot put, plastic bottle free throw, and bottle-cap-in-a-haystack. Recyclympics promotes UT’s participation in RecycleMania, in which colleges across the

In the spirit of friendly competition and going green, UT is hosting Recyclympics. Faculty, staff, and students will compete in six Olympic-style recycling-themed events and win prizes. Crowd-pleasing favorites include the phonebook shot put, plastic bottle free throw, and bottle-cap-in-a-haystack. The competition is 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. on March 12 in the Humanities/Social Sciences amphitheater.

UT’s EcoCAR 2 team has been working to build a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle which reduces greenhouse gas and tailpipe emissions and also petroleum usage through the implementation of cleaner energy and renewable resources.

The United States European Union Summit on Science, Technology, Innovation, and Sustainable Economic Growth—organized in part by UT—has produced five reports examining the critical impacts of investments in science, technology, and innovation on sustainable economic growth. The summit involved an interdisciplinary group of scientists, economists, academics, entrepreneurs and policy analysts from the US and EU and was held from 2010 to 2012 in Knoxville, Tennessee; Washington, D.C.; Paris, France; and Brussels, Belgium.

For the third year, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, is challenging the University of Florida Gators to see who can recycle the most. UT won the first year, but not the second. The Vols want a tie-breaker. The duel is part of RecycleMania, in which colleges across the nation and Canada are ranked in an eight-week competition based on the amount of recycling and trash collected each week.